Archive for the ‘2000’ tag

Such a planning methodology of data collection and projection does have some intrinsic faults: it relies heavily on knowledge-based skills. It assumes that ‘correct solutions’ to social problems can be obtained from a scientific analysis of various data. It must be noted that a solution-driven approach and heavy reliance on physical sciences as opposed to social sciences, is inherently inaccurate since the ‘best planning answer’ is a non-existent variable, changing with time, society, culture, resource availability, etc. And there is always a danger of being consumed by this technique, and confusing the result for a solution.

The nature of this study involved making some basic assumptions about the way our study-area could evolve in the not-so-distant future. There have been doubts raised about the correctness of such a clinical technique wherein an urban settlement is ‘stripped’ of its various attributes, and these attributes then individually graded. Appreciation of the intricate complexity of human society, where each individual is a separate factor, is absent. Lack of importance to these inter-relationships is a flaw of such an analysis.

For E.g. In the current study, if we were to discover one other attribute, say a desert, how would it affect the final map? We would, using this approach, simply grade each cell one more time. Then we would add this new map to our list of maps, and calculate the new final map. However, we would fail to evaluate how the addition of a desert affects each of the other attributes individually.

But this flaw may not be as aggravated as it seems. Each cell gains its final value from all attributes. If in a hypothetical case, one could gather a ‘complete list of attributes’ that would impact future growth, and assign them ‘correct values’ (without even breaking them into distance-bands which are only for convenience), finally adding them in the ‘right equation’, one would come up with a case-specific fairly accurate growth forecast (however, even then, any sudden future changes would still get missed).

There have also been some other approximations:

* The integer weights assigned to attributes.

* Or, areas outside the study-area that exert significant impact on urban growth, but were ignored because of study limitations.

* Also, on examining the Cultural Points table, it is found that Cemetery was included as a row category. Cultural Points have been considered as having positive influence on future growth. But a cemetery would not have an entirely positive influence on urban growth. Furthermore, parts of UVA were used as cultural points. The university was also used as a major employer. Thus, there has been some overlapping. This results in disproportionate values for some cells.

But this study is an illustration more of a proactive planning approach, than an accurate projection of urban growth for an area. And even though limited in its effectiveness, any attempt to administer planning remedies would have to include some such non-arbitrary problem-solving technique.”